The rise of militant feminism has been quite hilarious to those of us who grew up in a pre-feminist world and still happily managed to make a life for ourselves in ‘male dominated professions’, and were mostly reared by a generation of women who cheerfully built Wellington bombers and reared families alone through force of necessity – actions which allowed today’s generation of female ‘victims’ to moan endlessly on Twitter without having to learn German.

Feminism arose on the University campuses; a clutch of boiler suited, Doc Marten shod, eccentrics, preaching the gospel according to St Greer – it didn’t seem so threatening at the time, just mildly amusing, in the same way that previous generations of students had livened newspaper columns with tales of ladies knickers appearing on the head of Sir Isaac Newton’s statue.

It was at Aberystwyth University that the issue of women as perennial victims of rape first reared its ugly head. A female student had over imbibed on Vodka during a party. A security guard was detailed to walk(?) her back to Halls. Two days later she complained to a university counsellor that ‘something had happened’ that night, but she couldn’t remember what. The security guard was questioned – he admitted, yes, indeed something had happened; they had had enthusiastic sex in the corridor before reaching her room. The security guard was charged with rape and the case went to Crown Court. She said she could neither remember giving consent, nor refusing. The case was stopped after she admitted this in court; the Judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans, agreed with the prosecution who said that “drunken consent is still consent”. Please note: the prosecution, not the defence.

Feminists were outraged. It would, they said, lead to women not coming forward to report rape simply because they had been drinking. It was ‘victim blaming’. Despite the CPS’ best endeavours, ‘drunken consent is still consent’ remains the law. The leading case, R. v. Bree [2007]EWCA Crim 804 walked a tightrope – if you have drunk sufficient to temporarily lose your capacity to chose whether to have sex or not – then it is rape. However it is not rape simply because you are drunk and regret your antics once sobered up.

In the US, where universities retain the ability to adjudicate on these matters outside of the judicial system, an altogether more draconian regime reigns. On the Quaker neo-liberal – ‘progressive’ – campus of Swarthmore College the feminist activists had been busy. Thus it was that 23 year old Lisa Sendrow found herself a willing customer of the student ‘sexual assault resource’.

Lisa and her boyfriend had been ‘seeing’ each other, and having sex, for three months. When he fell asleep on the bed in her room, she thought nothing of taking her clothes off, putting on her pyjamas, and climbing into bed next to him.

Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. “I basically said, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex with you.’ And then he said, ‘Okay, that’s fine’ and stopped,” Sendrow told me. “And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.”

Six weeks later, she went to see a university counsellor and announced that she had been raped. The counsellor, a male by the name of Tom Elverson, was incredulous – and she left his office in tears. Several months later, she told a Dean about the incident, and once again she was ‘brushed off’. What Lisa wanted was the full on approach that the CPS in the UK are currently promoting – that she should be believed, and the man, or rather fellow student, taken to court and prosecuted. What the college was offering was a more avuncular ‘in loco parentis’ attitude of attempting to resolve the dispute amicably as they would any other dispute between students.

Rape culture will have none of that. Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of ‘sexual assault’ victims. It is demanding that colleges take action under ‘Title X’ legislation which applies a minimum standard of ‘reasonable likelihood’ when adjudicating sexual assault charges between males and the female ‘survivors’ (note the language of premature adjudication) – or face withdrawal of federal funds, and civil claims against the college.

The idea that women should in any way protect themselves from getting into situations where their willingness to have sex might be in doubt is tantamount to heresy. The newly crowned Miss USA, Nia Sanchez, who just happens to have a fourth-degree black belt in taekwondo, as you do, was asked about the startling increase in reporting college sexual assaults, and replied that women might like to take steps to train in self defence. Cue a Twitter storm:

Evidently, ’empowering women’ by ensuring they remain powerless is the height of feminism. The new feminism wishes women to be able to take off their clothes, climb in bed with their boyfriend, and should they later regret the ensuing sex, to be able to sue which ever institution they were in for ‘failing to protect them’.

The cheque, as ever, is in the male…

Tagged as: #Ibelieveher, Feminism, Rape Culture